I was wondering if the removed-shoes meme was a Jewish thing, but a brief search did not turn up anything compelling. I did find a verse in Isaiah where the prophet is ordered to take off his sandals as a sign of mourning (I know, Paul McCartney ), a definition of the body as "the shoe of the soul" in the Kabbalah, and a line from a talmudic story in which Marta removes her shoes before leaving home to meet her death. But mostly shoes have a very different place in Jewish rituals. https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/our-rites- ... e/ceremony

Still, some connection seems to exist between the pictures of the shoes of modern-day terror vicsims and the piles of old footwear tourists are shown at Auschwitz to put them in the right state of mind for the Golgotha of Holocaustianity (the air raid shelter converted into a mock gas chamber).

Another 'shoe memorial' by the name "Shoes on the Danube Bank" was erected in Budapest in 2005.

Allegedly, 3500 people, 800 of whom were Jews, were ordered to take off their shoes (what difference would that make?) before being shot and dumped into the river by "fascist Arrow Cross militiamen". If you read on, it becomes clear that only the 800 Jews were important.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoes_on_the_Danube_Bank

In relation to the shoe and Jewish line of thought I managed to find this article....

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SHOE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO JEWISH SOURCES

A few extracts...

"Civilized people lose easily their religion, but rarely their superstitions', says Karl Goldmark somewhere. The superstition concerning the shoe has come down to our own days, and we meet it even among the educated classes of society."

"The shoe denotes supreme power and possession. 'Den Pantoffel schwingen' is a well-known proverbial expression marking off the shoe as the symbol of power."

"The shoe thus is accorded an importance equalling that of the foot. The foot signifies domination: 'Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet' (Ps. 8. 6). Hence the victor puts his foot on the vanquished to symbolize the victory which has been won:

'Put your feet upon the necks of these kings' (Josh. 10. 24) was the order of Joshua to his victorious warriors in order to indicate that the enemy had been defeated for all time '

"And just as the foot symbolizes power, so also does its gear, the shoe. Of the hero Joab King David says: 'And put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on feet."

"Halitzah [literally] “taking off” the shoe [is] the rite by means of which a widow whose husband has died without issue is released from the bond of levirate marriage [in which the brother of a childless man is obliged to marry his widow].

In the book of Deuteronomy (25: 5-10) the law is promulgated that the widow of a childless man is obliged to marry his brother, but if the levir (“brother-in-­law”) refuses to marry her, he has to undergo the rite of halitzah:

“But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, his brother’s widow shall appear before the elders in the gate and declare, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother; he will not perform the duty of a levir.’ The elders of his town shall then summon him and talk to him. If he insists, saying, ‘I do not want to marry her,’ his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull [from the root chalatz, hence the name halitzah] the shoe off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declara­tion: ‘Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house!'” (verses 7–9).

From this [passage] it appears that the purpose of halitzah was to put the levir publicly to shame for refusing to do his duty of marrying his brother’s widow. The widow is considered bound to the levir in that she cannot marry anyone else until she has been released by halitzah.

In the rabbinic sources the opinion is ex­pressed that while it is clear from the biblical passage that the ideal is for the levir to marry the widow, “nowadays” he should not be allowed do so but must release her through halitzah. The reason for the change is that since levirate marriage involves a man marrying his brother’s widow, an act otherwise forbid­den, the levir must be motivated solely by his wish to carry out his religious obligation and it can no longer be assumed that the levir’s intention is “for the sake of heaven.” Another opinion is recorded, however, that levirate marriage has priority over halitzah. The difference of opinion continued for centuries, some Sephardi and Oriental communities following the opinion which prefers levirate marriage to halitzah.

The Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel introduced the law that halitzah is always to be preferred for all Jews in the state, whatever their original practice was. Obviously, once the ban on polygamy had been established, halitzah was the only option in any event where the levir already had a wife.

There is evidence that sectarians in early rabbinic times understood literally the reference to the widow spitting in the levir’s face but, according to the rabbis, the word befanav has to be translated not as “in his face” but “to his face,” and the widow simply spits on the floor in front of the levir.The Halitzah Rite

The halitzah rite, as now practiced with great solemnity, is based on the elaborations found in the Talmud and the [medieval legal] codes. A court of three rabbis, to which two others who need not be rabbis are added, meet on the previous day to establish the place where the rite is to be carried out, usually but not necessarily in the courthouse. On the next day, the widow is expected to fast until after the halitzah has been performed. She and the levir appear before the court and she recites in Hebrew the words in the Deuteronomic passage, and he recites the declaration that he does not wish to marry her.

A special shoe made of leather with straps, the property of the court, is given formally as a gift to the levir, who puts the shoe on his right foot and walks in it a few paces. The widow then bends down, holds the levir’s foot in her left hand, unties the shoe with her right hand, removes the shoe, and casts it aside. She then spits in front of the levir and recites the Deuteronomic declaration: “Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.” The court then offers the prayer: “May it be God’s will that the daughters of Israel will never have to resort to levirate marriage or halitzah.”Pros and Cons of Halitzah

Orthodox and some Conservative Jews still ob­serve this time-honored rite, requiring the widow to obtain the halitzah release before she can remarry. Some, perhaps many, Jews have given expression to a marked aversion to halitzah on the grounds that the levir is humiliated for failing to do his duty when he is no longer allowed to carry it out. The spitting has also been seen as repugnant, and some people have morbid superstitions about the rite, aggravated by the custom in Eastern Euro­pean communities for the levir to rest his back against the board upon which the dead are washed before burial.

Against this, widows left without a child by a deceased husband have been known to value the rite as affording them psychological relief–by denoting a complete severance with the past in order for a new life to begin. The problem of the agunah [a woman who has been deserted by her husband or whose husband has disappeared without giving her a bill of divorce] can arise where the brother-in-law refuses to participate in the halitzah rite unless he is given a substantial sum of money. Rabbis usually seek to persuade the brother-in-law not to engage in this form of blackmail but their efforts are not always successful. The Chief Rabbinate in the State of Israel has coped with this problem by introducing a law according to which the brother-in-law is obliged to undertake the maintenance of the widow until he agrees to participate in the halitzah rite.

Another instance of agunah in connection with halitzah is where the only brother of the deceased is a minor. Since a minor cannot perform halitzah, the widow has to wait until the boy reaches the age of 13 before she is free to remarry. So far no legal remedy has been found for this problem.

Reform Judaism in the 19th century rejected the requirements of either levirate marriage or halitzah, although Reform rabbis have been known to participate in the rite if the widow feels herself bound by conscience not to remarry without halitzah."

**** I bolded key words

My take on it: The pattern we are observing is a Blackmail/Threat covertly telegraphed via the imagery of shoes between the hoaxing agency and a competing power.

****I believe this issue is vast enough to merit it's own Topic. However since I am newbie I will err on the side of caution and plop it on The Living Room floor.

****I realize the below consists of copious amounts of conjecture. Most of my posts will be linked to readily available media evidence (eg my 2nd, 4th and 6th posts.)

The hashtag #MeToo has gone viral sparking a revolution. Those that post it are announcing that they too are a victim of sexual assault. The general thrust behind the movement is to illustrate the pervasiveness of predatory perversion upon the female population. Males have also taken to using the tag to highlight their victim-hood. Prior to this trend sexual assault victims had a hard enough time. To seek justice victims had to publicly come forward and face their accusers in court as they recounted their traumatic experiences. The veracity of claims have been further scrutinized because of the significant number of false accusations and the magnitude of injustice that results when these false accusation lead to a conviction. It is my opinion that #MeToo will further discredit real victims. This effect will be hyper amplified by the velocity and volume of social media. Any Twitter/Instagram user with any agenda at no cost and no risk can now claim victim-hood. Sympathy, genuine or not, will be achieved through social media solidarity. The authentic victims of sexual violence will be marginalized drowned out by a sea of social sympathy. Unfortunately for them and the rest of society there is a more sinister second phase to this social engineering operation.

Sexual Assault is a serious societal issue with insidious long terms effects. Efforts should be made to reduce this scourge in society. The social media witch hunt is being presented as a way to take down powerful villains. Harvey Weinstein is currently being eviscerated by social media. Whether these sensationalized scandals are actually happening or they are completely scripted doesn't really matter. The world believes that the King of Hollywood is being tarred and feathered by the unwashed masses. The elites can use their war chests to mount a defense should one ever really be required. But it won't.

The true target of all this public finger pointing is the general public itself. Anyone's reputation can now be destroyed by synchronizing bawdy tales of sexual assault. These stories can be created via computer algorithms and cast widely across numerous platforms. Likes can be manipulated and retweets can be accelerated bolstering public condemnation. 'Victims' backstories can be corroborated and their timelines coordinated through the backdating of a newly created social media presence.. Unlike the wealthy entertainers currently being confronted most folks can not afford to fight such allegations. Employers will fire the accused. Spouses will divorce them . Friends will turn away. This is the new world we are creating . Enemies of the powerful, challengers of the system and investigators of the truth will be destroyed with a key stoke. The justly motivation of saving women and empowering the voiceless is being used against those it seeks to protect. Proponents of #MeToo say a revolution is underway. They are mistakenly doing the bidding for those they oppose creating a much more dangerous reality for all woman (& all men). A world where everyone can be silenced. The desired empowerment will not occur. The opposite will happen. There is a term for that. It is enslavement.

Key stoke or key stroke, I honestly don't think that's going to happen. It is not in the interest of the pigs-that-be to show the sheep how sleazy they are.

Dear ghostofpedro,

I just re-read your last post above and have to say you're making many very good points. So, sorry for sounding perhaps a bit dismissive & superficial in my curt 'key-stroke' comment (quoted above) - I didn't mean to be. Yes, I too believe it's all about social engineering. Of the most devious sort.

Simon, Thank you for reevaluating my post. I was admittedly disheartened by your initial reaction. I momentarily considered fading back into a full time lurker. But I soon realized that your misinterpretation was ultimately my fault. My sentence construction is sloppy and my punctuation is lacking. The connections and logic that seem so defined and intuitive within my mind need to be thoroughly and effectively transcribed. Ambiguous wording and phrasing should be removed. I strive to write clearer in my next post.

ghostofpedro

Last edited by ghostofpedro on October 24th, 2017, 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Weinstein story seems thin and contrived. Here we have Hollywood effectively policing themselves and expressing a moral outrage, ‘this cannot continue’. The entertainment business must be the most notorious, exploitative industry in that an individual’s desperation to be famous enables them to compromise themselves morally, sexually and intellectually. Unless you ascend to producer or director you will always be a potential prey.

The suggestion within this story is that those breaking the law will be found and dealt with. It also shows the power of social media to 'out' and destroy predators and gives a semblance of fairness and ‘power to the people’. It suggests that the elites are not above the law. All three ideas are completely false.

From reading David McGowan’s, ‘Programmed to Kill’, it seems that these major celebrities are nothing more than meaty treats fed to the media lions as the occasion warrants. Perhaps it was a slow news month? Perhaps to bury some of the dark policy enactments? Or perhaps Weinstein had crossed a line or served his usefulness? A sacrifice has to be made. It could almost be a message from the real elites, ‘look what we can do’! Keep towing the line boys!

David made it overtly clear why there is a constant link between the entertainment industry, Government and recurring abuse, pedophilia, sex scandals and so on. Given that link, this ‘huge’ breaking story is so routinized now as to be a cliché. This story shows just what short memories we have, what a lack of real interest is shown and how little if anything ever changes, despite these ‘powerful’ social media campaigns.

I hasten to add, that whilst I mock the superficiality of the story, I extend genuine regret to anybody affected by genuine predatory behavior.

Thing is, they run a kind of of "pay-per-bandwidth" scheme, so whenever the bandwidth gets consumed, the forum goes down. So, yes - it was my bad : being pretty busy lately (with my head in the clouds), I forgot to check the remaining credit balance - but promptly sent them some more funds as I noticed the forum was down today. As it is, I find myself sending them funds ever more frequently, which hopefully is good news - since it probably means we're getting more 'traffic' by the day. I also just renewed our yearly fee for Septemberclues.info (hosted by a quite stable yet rather costly server) - so thanks again to those who kindly contribute from time to time towards our hosting expenses. As I trust that you all hopefully know, I'm not making a living out of this whatsoever - I'm just one of billions of folks on this planet trying to make ends meet - yet lucky enough to enjoy life while doing so, and hoping (in my more idealistic / optimistic moments) to provide a useful 'social service to mankind' - however pompous that may sound!

This post is in Chat-box because I believe that it may be the best placed.

So far as I can see a 'modern' 'rocket' is merely a refurbished/refurnished 'old' rocket from the days of 'Science Fiction' of yore. (My second story, written when I was 12/13 years old), called 'Moon Conquest' reflected this notion of 'space' travel). This was the era of a great deal of all the 'Science Fiction' magazines that many of us here have read and of which (perhaps) we were avid readers. In innocence, no harm done but a potential hazard for further manipulation (nod, nod, wink, wink). I have to say, I revelled in this. I loved the stories and leaned much.

These works became the precursors of the drivel that remains with the 'Star Trek' and even worse 'Star Wars' franchises that still pervade the screens of the ignorati who happily ignore the fact that it is/was a fiction.

To be sure, many very interesting notions came from this (Science Fiction) if you were sentient, otherwise it might be likened to so-called notions of 'modernity', that 'space-flight' is or may be, actually possible and all the other nonsense that apparently circulates an isolated planet in a so-called 'universe'.

Back to 'rockets'.

So far as I can determine, the Chinese invented the first 'rocket' (or at least a firework of some kind) by mixing a compound of 'this and that' which caused an 'explosive' reaction (much like mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda). I would assume that some 'wag' put this into a tube, was able to ignite it and the tube exploded...bang!

Another 'wag' discovered, through careful experimentation (and heavily bandaged fingers) that adding a piece of stick to the apparatus and igniting same or similar object, placing it in a bottle or configuration of rocks or whatever, and upon ignition with a flint upon a suitable rock, caused it to ascend into the atmosphere. Thus was 'rocketry' born.

Now, when such a rocket/firework (for it has undergone many incarnations) is launched the 'fuel' is rapidly burnt and according to some 'laws of physics' this provides a mechanism by which the tube (attached to a suitable stick/fin system) is ejected into what we call the 'atmosphere'.

Depending upon the size of the of the tube, the amount of propellent (in this case some sort of 'gunpowder') and the length of the stick to which it was attached, and the nature of the 'launch pad', (in this case a 'bottle' of some kind) it would ascend to a particular height (unknown), fizz out and descend to nowhere one could imagine, except perhaps a poor peasant who was wandering in a field looking for turnips and got hit by the expelled object and gave up looking for turnips.

The mathematics of this 'rocketry' escapes me but not the height of the said projectile which I could possibly measure with a suitable number of hand-spans. (It reached about 48 thumbs before I cut my nails).

Such a device, even on the scale of a rear/back garden fire-work display (November 5th where I used to reside,) would end up with no knowledge of the whereabouts of said object after it was 'launched'. Neither 'height' nor 'distance'.

It fell, like the arrow in this part of a favourite poem:

The Arrow and the SongBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For, so swiftly it flew, the sightCould not follow it in its flight.

It is my view that rockets, when ignited, go 'whoooooosh!' Whatever their size or configuration (cleverness), they go 'whoooooosh!'

Why do defenders/offenders (of 'rocketry') produce videos showing alleged rocket launches where the 'rockets' lumber * into a constantly changing void, disappear, never to be seen again even with gigantic zoom lenses?

*lumber: 1. To move slowly (O.E.D.). 2. Old wood ('American').

One has to admit that all these videos look very impressive but all we really see is huge clouds of smoke obliterating everything, a lumbering pencil-shaped object and supposedly exhaust. Is there something about 'exhaust'?

Why the enormous amounts of smoke (screen?) whilst 'lifting off'?

Is this the nature of burning whatever fuel they use?

It there verifiable evidence that this is what is actually happening at a given time?

What are they burning? Clearly, Unclear energy?

A rocket, (or at least a firework), just shoots up into the 'atmosphere'. ('Could not follow it in its flight.')

I have tried to study the following video to determine any answers and can find none.

I do think it is worth looking at the whole compilation. One might gather much more than I am able in my dotage. It is useful to listen also to the audio of each events.

I would be grateful to anyone who can explain the amount of clouds of (something) that obscures a 'take-off' or why it is so slow.

So, some questions:

Why are rockets so slooow to take off?

A firework 'takes-off'' immediately the fuel is burnt (almost immediately) to propel the device. How come rockets appear to 'accelerate' after 'burning' incredible amounts of their fuel instantaneously? (Remote accelerator pedal?)

How do you decelerate a rocket on an engine that only lifts a device? ('Moon'/ 'Mars'/asteroids/comets landings and so forth, fifth and sixth.)

How can you even think of manoeuvring a device that can only work in one direction (i.e. upwards)?

The notion that rockets can or cannot work in 'space' is redundant upon the fact that the rocket cannot, under any circumstances attain any velocity capable of doing anything outside its potential. The potential remains silent upon verifiable data.

Quite frankly, the notion of sending a fuelled HB pencil rocketing into space from my garden and considering the apparent diameter of the planet we call Earth upon which the said pencil is less than a pixel of a pixel on a computer screen has to be a nonsense before we begin.

sharpstuff » October 29th, 2017, 9:54 am wrote:So far as I can see a 'modern' 'rocket' is merely a refurbished/refurnished 'old' rocket from the days of 'Science Fiction' of yore. (My second story, written when I was 12/13 years old), called 'Moon Conquest' reflected this notion of 'space' travel).

[After finding this site] I've at times marvelled to myself about me writing, at the age of 10/11 as a fifth grade class assignment (1971/72), a story of taking a piece of junk from a junkyard, spraying it with Lysol, and taking it on a trip to the moon. The story was illustrated, made into a mock book, and read to several classmates. As I recall, they liked it.